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Everybody who publicly excoriated the UI (or what they thought was the UI) of the Hawaii public alert system here should think about their role in spreading mis

Everybody who publicly excoriated the UI (or what they thought was the UI) of the Hawaii public alert system here should think about their role in spreading misinformation. This story was catnip to computer people, and too few people waited for any kind of confirmation before deciding they knew all about what happened, and how to fix it.

giarc 9y ago
It still is bad UI, that hasn't changed. So people didn't spread misinformation. Sure, the employee clicked the wrong button because of this audio alert, but the buttons/text are still poorly designed.
- idlewords 9y ago
  There's no way to tell if it's bad UI given the publicly available information. We'd need to see the whole flow (including confirmation steps), as well as know something about how the employees were trained on this interface.
  - giarc 9y ago
    That's UX, not UI. The user interface is bad. The bad labelling/naming of the links makes it more likely to click the wrong button. That is bad UI. Bad UX would be the situation if even after that, there is no double check or alert to confirm that users intention.
mrtksn 9y ago
I wouldn't call spreading misinformation because that was the official statement. It just turned out that the official statement was incorrect. Besides, memes were brilliant :)
- idlewords 9y ago
  Which official statement are you referring to? This is the only one I can find: https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/files/2018/01/20180113-NR-HI-EMA-statement-on-missile-launch-false-alarm.pdf https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/files/2018/01/20180113-NR-HI-EM... Everything else seems to stem from the initial Washington Post article.
  - mrtksn 9y ago
    I recall few occasions, here is one: https://youtu.be/snJDQrvy6Ao?t=44s https://youtu.be/snJDQrvy6Ao?t=44s The statement is that an employee clicks the wrong button and the tech community decides that it's bad UI design.

giarc 9y ago

It still is bad UI, that hasn't changed. So people didn't spread misinformation. Sure, the employee clicked the wrong button because of this audio alert, but the buttons/text are still poorly designed.

idlewords 9y ago
There's no way to tell if it's bad UI given the publicly available information. We'd need to see the whole flow (including confirmation steps), as well as know something about how the employees were trained on this interface.
- giarc 9y ago
  That's UX, not UI. The user interface is bad. The bad labelling/naming of the links makes it more likely to click the wrong button. That is bad UI. Bad UX would be the situation if even after that, there is no double check or alert to confirm that users intention.

mrtksn 9y ago

I wouldn't call spreading misinformation because that was the official statement. It just turned out that the official statement was incorrect. Besides, memes were brilliant :)

idlewords 9y ago
Which official statement are you referring to? This is the only one I can find: https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/files/2018/01/20180113-NR-HI-EMA-statement-on-missile-launch-false-alarm.pdf https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/files/2018/01/20180113-NR-HI-EM... Everything else seems to stem from the initial Washington Post article.
- mrtksn 9y ago
  I recall few occasions, here is one: https://youtu.be/snJDQrvy6Ao?t=44s https://youtu.be/snJDQrvy6Ao?t=44s The statement is that an employee clicks the wrong button and the tech community decides that it's bad UI design.